


Tourist Season

by sidnihoudini



Category: South Park RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Exes, Happy Ending, M/M, Mixed Media
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:53:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25504756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: CREATORS OF “SOUTH PARK” SPLIT AFTER 6 YEARS OF MARRIAGE, 25 YEARS TOGETHER-- Matt Stone and Trey Parker, co-creators of South Park and The Book of Mormon, have filed for divorce after 5 years of marriage and 26 years together.
Relationships: Trey Parker/Matt Stone
Comments: 29
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this is what I'm doing for the rest of quarantine ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

_CREATORS OF “SOUTH PARK” SPLIT AFTER 5 YEARS OF MARRIAGE, 25 YEARS TOGETHER_

_Matt Stone and Trey Parker, co-creators of_ South Park _and_ The Book of Mormon, _have filed for divorce after 5 years of marriage and 26 years together._

_Stone, 49, filed documents seeking to end his marriage with Parker, 50, on Monday at the Colorado Supreme Court. The two were married in late 2014, after same-sex marriage was legalized in the state of Colorado on October 7 of the same year. Stone and Parker met in college at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1992. They began dating in 1994._

_According to E!, Stone cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the split. The couple did not have a prenup, and have not requested spousal support._

_The 23rd season of_ South Park _premieres on Comedy Central at 10/9c, September 23rd._

*

_TREY PARKER TELLS NEWLY ENGAGED COUPLE: “DON’T DO IT!”_

_A recently rediscovered video shows the writing was on the wall for Trey Parker and Matt Stone MONTHS before they publicly announced their separation._

_TMZ obtained this clip from a charity event last year that Parker and Stone attended. In the short video, Parker is shown chatting it up with an attendee. When the woman tells Parker that she and her fiancee are planning to start a business together, Parker blurts, “Don’t do it!”_

_Everyone laughed -- including Stone, who was standing beside Parker -- but information is now coming out that the ex couple had been considering divorce since late last year, right around the time the video was recorded._

_Parker and Stone are notoriously private, but TMZ has obtained legal documents as well as stories from close sources that indicate this split was anything BUT a surprise to those who knew the couple well._

*

_“SOUTH PARK” HITS SERIES RATINGS HIGH FOR SEASON 24 PREMIERE, STILL TOP CABLE COMEDY IN YOUNG ADULTS_

_There’s a new storyline in_ South Park, _and it has nothing to do with those foul-mouthed kids._

 _The premiere episode -- which is the first new episode to debut since show co-creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, announced their divorce last month -- was shockingly average, as far as_ South Park _episodes go. While many tuned in to see if there would be any references or hints towards the separation, viewers were left with a standard_ South Park _plot that followed Cartman and the boys through another foul-mouthed adventure._

South Park _remains the network’s top telecast among all cable comedies this year, up a whopping 57% from last year -- largely due to new mass curiosity in what’s happening behind the scenes. At the beginning of last season, Parker and Stone signed a new deal with Comedy Central to see the series through an additional three seasons._

_The series has held the top cable comedy spot for the last six years._

*

_TMZ EXCLUSIVE: SOUTH PARK’S MATT STONE GOES OFF ON PHOTOGRAPHER -- “GET THE #%$! OUT OF MY FACE, A**HOLE”_

_Recently divorced Matt Stone got fed up with a photographer who brought up his ongoing separation from_ South Park _co-creator, Trey Parker._

_In this exclusive video obtained by TMZ, Stone is out in Culver City, California, when a couple of photographers start asking questions. Stone is notoriously private, and has not yet publicly commented on his divorce from Parker, which he filed three months ago. Stone stays tight lipped in the video, until one of the videos (editor’s note: not TMZ) start asking questions about his relationship with Parker._

_The photog can be heard telling Stone, “Too bad about the divorce, bro. That sucks. That really sucks. You know what, you’re rich though, you’ll figure something out. You’ll pull more ass than the other guy, dude. You’re better looking for sure.” Stone is visibly tense through the entire interaction, but finally snaps on the photog. In a litany of swear words, Stone knocks the camera away, and yells, “Get the f**k out of my face, a**hole.”_

_He goes on to shove the photographer off the sidewalk, and say, “What the f**k is wrong with you? Get the f**k out of here!”_

_Stone is not represented by a PR firm._

_His lawyer had no comment for TMZ._

*

_CONAN O’BRIEN NEEDS A FRIEND EPISODE #143 (TRANSCRIPT)_

O’BRIEN: _Now, I don’t wanna pry--_

PARKER: _Oh please don’t--_

O’BRIEN: _But I would be remiss if I didn’t say something. I really was sad to hear about you and Matt. Seriously. That hit me in my little… my tiny little no feeling heart._

PARKER: _Yeah, man._

O’BRIEN: _Divorce isn’t easy._

PARKER: _No. Divorce sucks. It really does. I don’t even have anything funny to say about it._

O’BRIEN: _Yeah._

PARKER: _And like, thank god we don’t have any kids. Just the show has been hard enough._

O’BRIEN: _Oh my god that’s right. I literally didn’t… it didn’t occur to me that you both just had to go back in there and get that whole season out._

PARKER: _Yeah._

O’BRIEN: _Wow. Wow!_

PARKER: _It was… I mean, honestly, it was hard. It just sucked. Everything was different. I look back on those episodes and they’re just… sad. I was sad when I was writing them. I brought my shitty little rain cloud along and just ruined everything (laughs)._

O’BRIEN: _No! Don’t say that. It’s, it’s-_

PARKER: _It was terrible. Every day sucked. I cried so much. Just me, and my sad… my sad computer, and my little lunch deliveries, and my divorce (laughs)._

O’BRIEN: _You’re really a tortured artist now._

PARKER: _Totally. Oh my god. Now I have to write some kind of… some kind of sad opus._

O’BRIEN: _A sad musical! I feel like you would knock that out of the park._

PARKER: _It would just be me in a Phantom of the Opera mask. Crying. Looking for Matt._

O’BRIEN: _Oh god. Sona just gave me a look, like-_

PARKER: _“Shut him up, people are going to kill themselves!” (laughs)._

O’BRIEN: _Well. I’ll be your friend, buddy._

PARKER: _Thanks man._

*

_“SOUTH PARK” CO-CREATOR DIVORCE FINAL_

_The marriage between Matt Stone and Trey Parker, co-creators of_ South Park _and_ The Book of Mormon _is over… and everything has been divvied up 50/50._

_According to new legal docs obtained by TMZ, multiple settlements have been reached, including several properties, vehicles, bank accounts, investments, and personal items. Not included in the divorce settlement are the now ex-couple’s multiple creative ventures, including South Park Studios and Important Studios._

_People Magazine states there were no disputes during the settlement process._

_TMZ broke the story earlier this year, after Stone filed the paperwork citing “irreconcilable differences.”_

_Neither Stone nor Parker have been seen with any new beaus since the split._

*

_LATER THAT YEAR --_

Matt closes his car door by kicking it shut with the edge of his shoe.

“Fuck,” he announces, staring at his distorted reflection in the tint.

There’s a sinking feeling in his gut, because it’s hard not to walk into the building - and this day, and the new season, and their next run - with an attitude. All Matt wants to do is put a shitty expression on his face, middle finger his way through the next 18 hours, and climb back into his bed alone. He looks around the empty parking lot with a scowl.

Working with your ex fucking sucks, and Matt has to do it once a year. Like a holiday. But shitty.

He stacks all his crap for the day into the crook of his arm, and edges his way around the perimeter of the parking lot. Matt has looked for Trey in every room he’s walked into since 1992; aside from quitting smoking on his 35th birthday, it’s been his second hardest bad habit to break.

The fact that he and Trey will cross paths today is inevitable. In the lobby, Matt forces a scary “hello, I am fine!” smile at the new guy sitting behind the reception desk, beeps his ID against the security pad, and beelines towards his office. 

Matt doesn’t know what Trey has been up to, even though he thinks about Trey all the time.

This is the first time Matt has been back in the office since the last season wrapped. That whole run was a blur, but this morning, the bandaid is finally off -- and it stings.

Everything in this building is attached to a memory like a tooth is attached to a nerve. Matt keeps his head down as he walks the length of the hallway, but it’s too late -- it’s in his senses, crushing down on him from all angles. Buying a new apartment to live in hurt in the way leaving always did, but it didn’t bring along the skin deep ache of pressing on an old bruise. And being here is like hurting himself over and over just to remember how things used to feel.

Matt turns sharply into his office, and closes the door.

The blinds are open, and his computer and lights are all turned on. Someone has already been in here this morning to set everything up on his behalf. Matt sighs and starts setting things down on his glass topped desk - keys, lanyard, phone, the crinkly one-use water bottle he bought at the gas station. When he’s done, he looks around the room. Everything is how he remembers it a year ago -- more or less.

There’s a knock and then someone cracks the door with a soft, “Hey.”

Matt turns around, and isn’t surprised to see Anne standing there looking concerned.

“Hey, morning.” He straightens up and eyes her, trying to get a read. “How was your break?”

She snorts and tilts the side of her head against the frame. “Amazing, actually. I got enough sleep that I should be good for the next three months.”

“Nice,” he smiles, and they meet each other’s gaze again. Matt narrows his eyes. “So what are you avoiding telling me?”

Anne rolls her eyes at him. They’ve known each other since Matt was a shitty little punk, and she’s worked alongside him in every stressful situation in the studio trenches. They have a shorthand; they’re a well-oiled machine. That eye roll translates roughly to _I don’t want to say it but I’m going to say it anyways and only because you asked me first._

“Trey’s already here,” she shrugs, playing it cool. “Just thought you should know.”

Matt laughs and gives her an incredulous look. “Where else would he be?”

“Hey, I know today is going to be hard on you guys.” She’s gentle when she says it; Anne got divorced ten years ago, and now she’s married to a better, younger dude, and they have two kids together. She doesn’t know anything about how Matt feels because it still feels like Trey left him yesterday. “Just, you know. Trying to keep the lines of communication open.”

Snorting, Matt walks around the back of his desk, and aggressively spins his chair around.

“Tell that to Trey,” he tells her. “So he can tell me through our lawyers.”

Anne’s lips twitch into a bunch at the side of her mouth. _Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. Great._

“If it makes you feel better, he’s having a rough morning too.” She smiles a little bit, because people were always smiling when they thought about Trey, and Matt got that, because he was still no different even though sometimes he still wanted to kill him. “He’s already ordering food.”

Matt twists the shortest hairs at the back of his head. “Yeah, sounds like Trey.”

“Alright, well. Just wanted to say hi, and good luck today.” She looks at him again, and then turns to go, one hand on the door knob to tug it closed after she leaves. “Call me if you need anything.”

Sighing, Matt flops down into his office chair. His computer monitor springs back to life, bright - a thousand emails to read, shit on his desktop from last season he still needs to organize, and a folder of couple-y pictures he should delete before he makes a PowerPoint out of them set to _Maps_.

“I will,” he says, offering her a small, genuine smile. “Thanks, Anne.”

*

He won’t, actually.

Matt has been white knuckling his way through their separation since the first day Trey said, “Dude, we need to talk.”

There was nothing like finding out that your partner of 25 years was deeply unfulfilled, sad, and stressed out. And Matt hadn’t handled it well - that first conversation could have gone a lot of different ways, with different endings, but he got his feelings hurt and his ego bruised, and maybe because he was also feeling deeply unfulfilled, sad, and stressed out, he lashed back at Trey.

And that had been two years almost to the date that Matt filed their divorce papers.

Now, he sits in his office, and stares at his computer desktop. Trey is in the same building for the first time since their last legal meeting a few months ago. Matt drags his cursor across the screen and watches it track. He double clicks on another document he should have filed while he still remembered what it was for.

Every time someone walks past his office door, his attention jumps the track.

“Jesus, fuck me,” he mutters to himself, resting his chin in one hand.

Matt hasn’t talked to anyone about how it feels to navigate his break-up with Trey, because it’s been a deeply traumatizing series of events that still make him snippy, and angry, and sad when he’s alone. The only other person who knows what it’s like to feel the loss of everything he’s had to leave behind is Trey.

A calendar reminder pops up at the corner of his screen. _Writer’s room catch-up (everyone attend, mandatory per TP)._ Matt clicks it away, a sick, clammy feeling.

He wedges his thumbnail between his front teeth and stares at the computer screen without seeing anything at all. There’s a good chance that Trey is already in the writer’s room, obsessively wiping down the boards before they get started. Wandering the perimeter of the room with one hand in his hair. Methodically stacking diet soda cans in the center of the table even though he was the only one who ever drank that shit.

But maybe Trey is still in his office. And if they’re going to have their grand reunification and almost anniversary of breaking one another’s hearts, Matt would rather not do it in front of a captive audience of paid employees. 

He eyes the doorway, door open now, but empty. Twenty years of mornings just like this. 

Matt’s imagination has no problem filling in the space where Trey should be. It’s easy, it’s obvious, and he has a thousand memories to collate: Trey, young and in a different building. A smaller office where their doors were right across from one another, a narrow hallway, tight enough that they could throw things at each other and laugh. After that, Trey’s bleached blonde hair, bright and spiked, and the obnoxious red paint of Matt’s shitty door. 

The last building they had before this one, full of narrow white board rooms and gigantic glass walls. Trey’s shoulders filled up that doorway, loose blue sweater, his white pearly grin. They just got married that year, they were happy. Five years ago, before things got bad. Their first season in this building. Trey had his own office but he spent more of his time in here; they slept on Matt’s couch three nights in a row once.

All of a sudden it hurts too much to stay sitting down.

Matt gets up abruptly, and walks through the doorway, out into the hall. Now he’s on a mission - and Trey is never that hard to find.

The hallways are suspiciously empty, and Matt gets that. If he weren’t directly involved, he wouldn’t want to deal with it, either. He brushes a hand over his head as he walks down the corridor; he got his hair cut yesterday, he’s got a new t-shirt on. This is about as prepared as he’ll ever be to see his ex.

Trey is not in his office, but his absence doesn’t matter to Matt’s heart. For the first time in a year, signals go zinging through his body -- dude, that’s Trey’s Diet Dr. Pepper can, he’s here. That pile of boxes means he just stress shopped on Amazon. Wait for him here, because he’ll come back for those. His sweatshirt is right there, and it’s all twisted up and inside out, just like you.

If Matt thinks about any of it enough he’ll cry.

He turns around and heads in the direction of their writer’s room instead. If Trey isn’t in his office, he’s either already around the conference table, or on his way there.

Matt slows down as he comes around the corner and sees Trey through the glass walls.

The parts of Matt that miss Trey get really loud, really fast. His insides itch and get flush with adrenaline and drive him crazy the same way Trey has always made him itch and driven him crazy. Trey’s face is full of stubble and his hair looks like Tweak’s hair. In a way, he looks like a stranger, but some part of Matt still confidently says _he’s mine._ I would know him anywhere, and he’s mine.

Cautiously, Matt slides the door open with both palms, and steps inside.

“Hey dude,” he says, making his voice so soft, it breaks.

Trey looks at him over his shoulder. His blank face jerks into surprise, and then a small, friendly smile that’s so familiar it stings. “Hi.”

“I, uh.” Matt freezes. “Well. I figured we shouldn’t make it awkward for everyone.”

Then they look at each other, and the last time they looked at each other, they were on opposite sides of the marble slab of their lawyer’s table, trying to figure out how to equally break up an entire life.

“Well this is definitely awkward,” Trey says, making Matt smirk. “Uh. How are you?”

Matt snorts and pulls a chair out by its head rest. “Peachy fuckin’ keen.”

“Yeah.” Trey is still looking at him blankly. Openly. “That’s pretty much it, huh.”

He’s wearing a t-shirt Matt has never seen before; it looks new, like he ripped the tag off this morning.

“I like the beard,” Matt says to distract himself. He sits down in the chair.

Trey’s eyes flicker like he’s trying to figure out if he’s the butt of a joke or not, and he’s not. He finally settles on a cautious, “Thanks.”

“Are you…” They stare at each other as Matt runs out of steam. “You’re good?”

It’s pretty obvious that neither of them are good, but Trey takes pity and swears, “I’m good.”

Matt is about to nod vigorously and say _GOOD!_ in a mid-Atlantic accent when the doors slide open, and two of their new writers awkwardly shuffle in. They’re the only ones in the building who don’t know that a writer’s meeting scheduled for 10 really means 10:15. 

“Morning!” Trey says, suddenly chipper and bright in the face of people who aren’t Matt.

Matt smiles and nods and echoes Trey’s crazy sounding, “Hello!”

It’s going to be a long morning, and a longer run.


	2. Chapter 2

Even Matt will admit it’s a rough first episode.

Anne is always around, eating her gigantic bowl of salad and sitting in on all of their writers meetings. She keeps saying she’s only there to get to know the new guys, but Matt likes to meddle, too, and game recognizes game.

The writer’s table isn’t as subdued as it was through last year’s run, but the chemistry is still off, and everyone knows it’s because of Matt and Trey.

Matt’s eating lunch with Eric on a restaurant patio a few blocks away from the studio when Eric brings it up. Matt is two beers in even though it’s a work night, because it’s Saturday and the script isn’t done yet. There’s nothing he can do about it.

And a few blocks away, Trey is sitting in front of his computer eating shitty fast food alone.

“How’s it been so far?” Eric asks vaguely.

Matt flips his burger open to take the tomato slice off. “Honestly? Shitty.”

“Yeah.” Even though Eric is a foot shorter than Matt, he eats twice as much. He’s ordered so many sides that Matt barely has anywhere to put his beer down on the table. “Anne’s been up your butt, huh?”

He finally finds a spot between a bowl of guacamole and chips.

“I guess so.” Matt tries to relax the frown on his face even though the sun gets in his eyes when he looks at Eric. “She’s just doing her job. And being a friend, I guess.”

Eric pounds on the butt of a ketchup bottle, and then thoughtfully sets it down. “I wonder what she thinks is gonna happen.”

“Whatever it is-” Matt pauses to take a bite. “It’s definitely more exciting than real life.”

He’s eaten this burger a hundred times, because he’s always been a creature of habit. The first bite tastes exactly like he expects. Trey found this place on some ‘Best of Culver’ blog five years ago -- when they first moved the studio from Westwood to Culver City -- and that night, Matt ordered this burger and an IPA.

In all the times they came here after, Trey never got the same thing twice.

“Have you guys hung out yet?” Eric asks, derailing Matt’s train of thought.

Matt takes another bite. “What, me and Trey?”

“Sure.” One of Eric’s shoulders jerks up to his ear as he says it, a little defensive. “Now that the legal stuff is done and all.”

That’s pretty much it with a shitty bow on top. Matt laughs at Eric’s concise summary of events, and then shrugs and says, “I saw him on Thursday, and that was it.”

Technically Matt also saw him from afar yesterday, too, but Trey was doing that thing he does where he wanders around like a ghost trying to think of something to say. 

And Matt knows he isn’t exactly living up to his byline as the creative muse. Crew aside, the reason they used to be able to put an episode together so fast was because they had a bottomless shorthand; morse code in the dark. That skill set has been gone since Matt moved out of the house and into that first lonely hotel room by himself.

“Well, maybe you should try and spend some time together, or something,” Eric says in his most earnest voice. “It’s not gonna get any better unless you try.”

Six months ago, everything was still being filtered through their lawyers.

“I don’t think we’re there yet, but thanks, butty,” Matt says. “Maybe next year.”

Eric shrugs and finishes off his plate of fries.

“If it makes you feel any better,” he tells Matt, “I think Trey feels the same.”

Matt snorts.

“Well, it wouldn’t be a feeling if I didn’t share it with Trey,” he says, diplomatically.

*

_FROM THE ROLLING STONE ARCHIVES...  
10 YEARS OF SOUTH PARK! STILL SICK, STILL WRONG_

Editor’s Note: This feature originally appeared in the March 22, 2007 edition of Rolling Stone.

_Our South Park loving editorial team sat down with Matt Stone and Trey Parker - the voices behind the foul mouthed cardboard cut outs - and indulged in our cumulative 1970s TV game show fantasy._

_Here’s how our version of The Dating Game played out…_

_TREY ON MATT:_

_SOMETHING THAT PISSES MATT OFF - Airports, slow drivers, shitty pizza, hotel shampoo…  
WHAT DOES MATT TAKE TO THE MOVIES - Popcorn with no butter (WTF????)  
SONG THAT DESCRIBES YOUR RELATIONSHIP - “Teenage Riot,” Sonic Youth_

_MATT ON TREY:_

_HOW DOES TREY ORDER HIS COFFEE - Big and black_  
_HIS WORST SPENDING HABIT IS - Crappy Xbox 360 games and ugly shoes_  
_SONG THAT DESCRIBES YOUR RELATIONSHIP - “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” The Stooges_

*

His lunch with Eric lasts about an hour.

Matt drops into his office chair, leather cold from the air conditioning, and rests both feet on the edge of his desk as he checks his work phone. He’s got 32 new unread emails and a couple of voice memos from his assistant, but being back at work doesn’t suck. Matt is happy to lovingly settle into the monotony of reviewing last year’s numbers and forwarding the emails he doesn’t want to answer to someone else.

But if he could get back in his car and leave tonight, he would.

He takes 5 minutes to reply to a couple of emails from Anne, and then a time sensitive one from licensing. Then someone from finance wants a copy of a report only he has, so he tosses his phone to his desk, and rolls back up to his feet.

A lot of the confidential stuff is still given to him in hard copy, because ironically, it’s now the most secure way to store data.

Matt drops to a knee in front of his wall of filing cabinets, and yanks the drawer he needs open.

It only takes a minute to find. He tugs out what he was looking for, and goes to push the drawer shut again, but this time it doesn’t close all the way.

“Goddamnit,” he grumbles, annoyed.

Matt is no engineer, but after fucking around for a couple of minutes, he figures it out -- there’s a piece of paper wedged at the very back of the drawer, and it’s blocking a tiny, yet important looking, rolly wheel. Once Matt digs the paper out, the drawer shuts again.

If it got filed in the first place, it’s probably important, so Matt tries to flatten the paper back out. He skims over it, not really thinking about anything until he realizes what it is.

Trey’s blocky, all caps writing. _Thank you for doing all the hard and sucky shit._ It isn’t addressed to anyone, and Trey didn’t sign it from himself, but Matt remembers finding it taped backwards to his shitty old CRT computer monitor like it happened yesterday. He spent that whole day in meetings, and they WERE all hard and sucky and shitty, because he had to argue with people who had way more money than they did at the time. Then he got to go home and hang out with Trey.

The next morning, this note was waiting for him when he got to his desk.

Matt gets stuck on the floor reading that note over and over.

“Oh hey, what are you doing down there?” Mya, his assistant, comes breezing into his office with a Starbucks tray in one hand. She sets a gigantic coffee, a gigantic water, and a gigantic green smoothie on the edge of his desk. “You have a phone call from legal coming in 10.”

For a second Matt doesn’t remember what he’s doing on the floor, either. He looks at Mya, and then at the folder he left on the ground. The note gets crumpled again as Matt gets back to his feet.

“Looking for a needle in a stack of needles,” he tells her, trying to recover, trying to sound like himself. His eyes are watering and he hopes she doesn’t clock it. “We should get someone to clean these things out. I haven’t opened most of them in a decade.”

She clacks at her phone with her long nails Matt doesn’t understand and replies, “Sure. Now?”

“Whenever,” Matt says offhandedly, setting the folder on his desk. Then, “Yeah, now.”

She nods again, still side-tracked with tapping out a note for herself on her phone. Matt stands there feeling dumb as he tries to recover and catch his breath; it feels like the ground fell out from under his feet and he didn’t realize it was happening until he was already sunk.

“Ice water, cold brew, sweet greens,” Mya tells him before clacking off.

Matt stands behind his desk, angled away from the door so no one can see him from the hall, and quietly opens the note to read one more time.

*

_SHUT OUT OF THE WRITER’S ROOM! SOUTH PARK CO-CREATORS’ COLD WAR_

_The divorce might be finalized, but the fight is just getting started._

_Even though South Park co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker ALLEGEDLY reached an “amicable” settlement earlier this year, their return to their day job has been a rocky road._

_Sources tell TMZ that Stone and Parker kept it cool last year -- while lawyers were still involved, and their combined 1 BILLION dollar net worth was on the table -- but now that things have been finalized, the gloves are off, and the fight is back ON._

_It’s well known that Parker has done the heavy lifting on both sides of the partnership for years, and now it sounds like he isn’t interested in towing Stone any further._

_And we’re told that Stone -- well known for his short temper -- isn’t taking the fight sitting down._

*

Everyone in the building is currently waiting on Trey.

The animators are waiting on Trey. Anne is waiting on an updated script from Trey. Their voice actors are in the lobby, drinking sugar free Red Bulls, and waiting on Trey. But not Matt.

It’s Sunday, and Matt is trying to take a nap on the couch before the sun comes up.

His watch keeps reminding him he’s been awake for 19 of the last 24 hours, but there’s too much cold brew and anxiety ratcheting around in his brain to get any rest. He’s not used to sleeping in September, anyways. Before the split, this early on a Sunday, they would be the only two people in the building still awake. Matt would have spent the night in Trey’s office doing anything to make him laugh.

There’s an audible creak that makes Matt look over at the doorway out of habit.

Trey is standing there, silhouette haloed by the overhead hall lights. Matt abruptly sits up.

“I was just wandering around,” Trey says, explaining himself. They both realize at the same time that Trey probably thought Matt was asleep. He starts chewing on the edge of his thumbnail, and adds, “Trying to clear my head.”

Matt rubs his face with one hand. “It’s fine.”

“Yeah.” Trey stops chewing his nail, and they look at each other. Trey doesn’t bother to conceal his anxiety. His arms are folded so tight over his chest, even Matt feels winded. “So... the new writers are pretty funny.”

He’s so tired all he can do is laugh at Trey’s stab at making small talk. 

“Super funny,” he agrees after a minute, and a yawn. When Trey doesn’t say anything else, Matt rubs his face again, and then asks what feels like the obvious question- “Are you okay?”

Trey tries to make a joke. He shrugs, “Just trying to make these episodes less of a bummer.”

The corner of Matt’s mouth lifts up into a tired smile, but it isn’t funny. Last season they got lots of critical acclaim, and positive reviews, and high ratings, and everyone keeps saying this is going to be the year they get another Emmy. Matt’s already seen the proof for Comedy Central’s for your consideration ad.

“Well, it worked out last time,” Matt shrugs. And all they had to do was break up.

Honestly, he still hasn’t watched the full run from last year. Matt remembers making those episodes. There were some days where he only left his office to record his lines alone in the booth. Mya brought all his meals to his desk, and made excuses for anything he asked her to. 

There were a couple episodes where he couldn’t even finish reading the script -- he could see himself and Trey all over them, and it hurt too much.

Trey edges around in the doorway. He nods, but he’s got that look on his face like he has more to say about it, and he goes to, but then he hesitates. He just looks straight at Matt again, and Matt thinks _whatever it is you can say it,_ and then Trey blurts, “You’re going to be around this season, right? Not like...”

Last year.

“Yeah.” Matt nods his head. Saying ‘yes’ to Trey is a knee-jerk reaction, and he immediately has to amend what he just said. “I’ll try.” He pauses, eyebrows knotting. “It’s hard, man.”

Trey nods back with a serious look on his face. “I know.”

“Last year sucked,” Matt continues, because this is the first time they’ve talked about it now that there’s nothing left of the sting. Just an achey, old bruise. “I really had a hard time with that.”

The knot in Trey’s eyebrows loosens into a sad arch. “Me too.”

“So, I don’t know.” Matt rests his hands on his knees and looks at Trey plainly. “I’ll try.”

Trey nods and quickly says, “Me too,” again. Then he pauses.

“What?” Matt asks.

There’s a second of hesitation, and then Trey says, “I can’t do this without you, man. If everything else is different, that’s fine, it’s whatever. But if we’re done here, we’re done together.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Matt says evenly.

It’s true. If Matt was going to take off into the sunset with his coin purse, he would have done it already. Even with their divorce, Matt has no problem digging his heels into the ground, planting himself at Trey’s side, and saying, _yeah, that’s me._

“Okay.” Trey nods and goes back to chewing on his nail. “I better finish this thing.”

Matt nods too. They look at each other again, and then Trey awkwardly turns around and leaves.

Sighing, Matt rests his head in his hands, and closes his eyes.

*

_MATT STONE TELLS TREY PARKER: “NO MORE ENDORSEMENT DEALS FOR YOU!”_

_The plot is getting thicker down in South Park._

_Divorce is hard enough… now imagine having to work with your ex every day! A source tells US Weekly that things over at South Park Studios are getting tough._

_It’s well known that the show’s two co-creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, are masters of their own domain. In the gigantic South Park machine, Parker runs creative, and Stone handles the business side of things. Now it sounds like those gears aren’t turning like they used to._

_The same source says that Stone’s priority this season is to write Parker out of their endorsement deals, which are worth an estimated 500+ million in streaming rights alone._

_We don’t know what the future will bring for Stone, Parker, or South Park Studios, but one thing is for sure…_

_There’s no such thing as an amicable divorce!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for leaving your thoughts on the first part! I am SO STOKED there are people reading matt and trey now haha.


	3. Chapter 3

The first episode is a wrap, and for once, Trey isn’t pulling his hair out about it.

Now Matt has 24 hours to himself. The clock starts ticking on Wednesday morning, when Frank heads out with the final cut of the episode in his bag. Matt says goodbye to Mya and Anne, waves at anyone he sees on his way to the car, and goes home.

The best part about finishing your work week at 10AM on a Wednesday in LA is the traffic. It only takes Matt about 35 minutes to pull into his driveway. 

Inside, he asks Alexa to blackout his bedroom, and flops into bed without brushing his teeth.

Matt sleeps for 13 hours. He wakes up disoriented around midnight, eats two bowls of oats while standing at the kitchen island, and goes downstairs to run on the treadmill for an hour.

Then he has a shower, jerks off, and climbs back into bed until tomorrow.

*

_WTF WITH MARC MARON EPISODE #502 (TRANSCRIPT, 2018)_

MARON: _How’s South Park doing?_

STONE: _Good, man._

MARON: _You’re back in there for what…_

STONE: _Season 22._

MARON: _Wow._

STONE: _Yeah, it’s pretty nutty. We go back next week._

MARON: _How’s Trey?_

STONE: _Trey’s great._

MARON: _How is it working with your significant other all the time?_

STONE: _It’s like Groundhog Day, every day._

MARON: _For 25 years._

STONE: _You got it, man. We’ve been married since we were 20._

MARON: _Guess the magic’s still there._

STONE: _(laughs) Sure._

*

In Hollywood, having a really good assistant is the currency of the realm.

Mya has been his assistant for seven years -- eight in January. At this point, she’s as expendable as his head. She juggles his schedule, makes phone calls on his behalf, and spellchecks every document with the finesse of an animated paperclip. Mya is the most organized person Matt has ever met, his mother included, and even though he’s has never seen Mya throw a punch, it seems like something she’d be good at.

All that to say -- Matt laughs when he walks back into his office on Friday and sees a wall of brand new filing cabinets and book shelves.

“Jesus. Nice job,” he tells her, looking around. There’s a lone cardboard box on the floor beside his desk. He sets his stuff down and kicks it gently. “What’s all this crap?”

She snorts. “Everything I couldn’t file under legal or finance.”

In-between the lines on that, Matt hears _love letters from Trey_ loud and clear.

“Got it.” He eyes the box again. It doesn’t look that scary. It’s just cardboard; it can’t break his heart. On the other hand… “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much is that box gonna bum me out?”

Mya doesn’t look over from whatever she’s reading. She just says, “I can shred it.”

Laughing, Matt rolls his chair out, and sits down. He accidentally bumps his screensaver off.

“Anything exciting happen while I was gone?” he asks. Mya is the one who holds down Matt’s corner of the pillow fort when he’s passed out at home in bed. Because he isn’t an asshole, he only employs her from 8 to 4, Monday to Friday. “Other than my new box of shame.”

Mya laughs. “Just another Wednesday, I’m afraid,” she says, flipping through the stack of envelopes she brought in from reception.

As Matt skims his inbox looking for something good, he listens to the violent way Mya opens his mail. Usually all he gets are unsolicited pitches and corporate greeting cards, but every now and then something personal slips in there.

“Oh, this is Natalie’s thing,” Mya says a few envelopes in. She looks up and flips the card around so Matt can see what she’s talking about. That’s the smiling face of one of their technical directors on a wedding invitation. “RSVP yes?”

Matt says, “Yeah, of course,” and reaches out for it. “As long as it works.”

He looks down at the invite after Mya hands it to him. Black tie, in January. Matt picks up a pen and checks the little “accepts with pleasure” box. The line underneath that says “number attending.” Matt digs a “1” into the paper so fast it makes a noise.

Every time he and Trey went to a party or an event together, they would just talk to each other all night. Maybe now Matt is just a “1” he’ll make a new friend.

“There we go,” he announces, handing it back. He tries not to act weird about it.

Mya looks at him critically anyways.

This will be the first wedding Matt has attended since his divorce.

*

_“SOUTH PARK” CO-CREATORS TIE THE KNOT!_

_It’s official -- Matt Stone and Trey Parker are married men. Stone and Parker, co-creators of_ South Park _and_ The Book of Mormon, _have one of the longest running partnerships in Hollywood. After meeting in college, the two quickly formed a relationship, and the creative projects soon followed -- first with a series of video shorts, and then their first full-length film,_ Cannibal! The Musical.

 _The nuptials took place in the couple’s home state of Colorado. Photos of the ceremony have yet to be made public, but TMZ confirmed through legal documents that the pair officially wed on December 18, 2014… exactly one week after wrapping the most recent season of_ South Park.

_A source close to the couple says that the wedding did not come as a surprise to anyone who knew them. The State of Colorado legalized same-sex marriage earlier this year, but prior to that legalization, both Stone and Parker had been critical of Colorado’s slow-moving approach towards approving civil ceremonies._

_During a podcast from earlier this year, Parker joked that at least Colorado was, “Better than Texas,” which was one of the last states forced to legalize. In the same interview, Stone was much more critical of the process, saying, “Listen, I have friends who are on their third marriage, and I can’t marry the person I’ve been with since ****ing forever? Total bull****. Don’t even get me started.”_

_A source close to the couple described the ceremony as, “short, serious, and sweet.”_

_Representatives for Stone and Parker did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment._

*

Episode two is easier. It’s a wrap late Tuesday night.

Matt spends his time between two and three exactly like one and two. He sleeps, eats, showers, jogs, and gets ready to go back to the studio.

It’s unglamorous and lonely, and for the first time since the break-up, Matt really feels the loss in being alone. He tries to make sense of it as he sits in traffic. It feels different this year. Last season everything hurt so much, it was hard to figure out where the pain was coming from. Now he knows -- and it stings.

Even on this side of the divorce, it’s still “Matt and Trey.”

The question used to be, “but why do they have to swear?” Then it became, “how many seasons do you guys REALLY think you’ll go?” And somewhere in there, it turned into, “How do you keep from getting sick of each other?” Matt’s answers were always: because it’s funny, until we get cancelled, and we don’t. He and Trey used to wake up in the same bed, get through the day connected by a string, and go back to the same bed at night.

And it worked, until all of a sudden it didn’t anymore.

Matt wiggles his fingers around the steering wheel to the Primordial song that comes up on his shuffle. It’s weird to think about having anyone else like that in his life. He had crushes in high school, and he dated a little bit in college, but nothing serious. Just kid stuff. Then he met Trey.

He can _kind of_ imagine dating someone else, just like he can kind of imagine anything else. He rolls to a slow stop again -- bumper to bumper traffic -- and scratches the second day stubble on his cheek. There’s room in his life for another person. He’s got a gigantic house and he only works four months out of the year. Matt has a lot of good things to bring to a relationship.

But every time he tries to picture himself taking someone out to dinner, or kissing them, or even having sex, it’s just a big, blank, space. And a couple seconds later, his struggling brain fills that gap in with Trey.

Matt inches along in traffic for another 25 minutes, and finally gets off at his exit.

*

_ABC 20/20 WITH DIANE SAWYER  
AIR DATE: SEPTEMBER 14, 2016 (TRANSCRIPT)_

SAWYER (VOICEOVER): When you enter the Stone and Parker household, it immediately becomes clear that two people live here. There are two cars in the sprawling driveway and a pyramid of unopened Amazon boxes in the hall, but no cheesy wedding portrait hanging over the mantel… just a wall full of personal photos taken over the last twenty years. The couple is notoriously private, but this year, there’s a catch.

_(CUT TO: INTERVIEW)_

PARKER: The network said if we exploited our relationship, we could get out of the rest of promo.

STONE: So here we are (laughs).

_(CUT TO: B-ROLL)_

SAWYER (VOICEOVER): Although the mountain of South Park merchandise is better left to their Marina del Rey studio, there are little hints of their television goldmine all throughout the house... almost like real-life easter eggs. A small, ceramic statue of Kyle and Stan holding hands sits on a bookshelf full of heavy metal band biographies and photo albums. These are versions of their oh-so-famous characters that are decidedly not meant for public consumption.

_(CUT TO: INTERVIEW)_

PARKER: That was an inside joke gag gift kind of thing from one of our animators. Kyle and Stan are not gay, just for the record. Me and Matt are SUPER gay.

STONE: (laughs) Yeah.

_(CUT TO: B-ROLL)_

SAWYER (VOICEOVER): On the shelf below that, a cheekily signed glamour portrait to both of them, from Penn Jillette. There’s also a framed photobooth strip of Stone and Parker, taken sometime in the 90’s. In the photo, Parker has his mouth opened wide against the side of Stone’s face, like he’s taking a big bite. It’s a photo strip left over from a not-so bygone era, where gay relationships weren’t something that existed out in the open yet, and in small towns, you got your photos developed where no one else could see them.

_(CUT TO: INTERVIEW)_

STONE: I mean, if you wrap it in a bow, that was pretty much the basis for South Park. Just this shitty little backwoods town in Colorado. That’s what we were used to. And, on top of that, too, at first it was easier to make fun of being gay then to be like, yeah. This is the deal.

PARKER: Gay stuff is really easy to make fun of, though. 

STONE: Yeah. Just a bunch of little homos (laughs).

SAWYER: So when you look back at that time, did you ever think you’d be sitting here working on the same show, talking about this kind of thing publicly?

STONE: Oh definitely not.

PARKER: Yeah, no. Success was always a maybe. My dad was still paying my rent, so I was hoping, you know. I had my fingers crossed for at least one season so we could get on our feet. But publicly being gay, no. That was never an option to the guy in that photo. 

STONE: We were still happy though.

PARKER: Oh yeah. We were pretty punk rock. We didn’t give a ****.

STONE: (Laughs) That’s right.

*

Matt is walking down the hallway with a bunch of papers in one hand when he hears it.

“Oh, look at me!” Trey says, but it’s in Cartman’s voice. “Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!”

It still makes Matt laugh. Cartman’s voice was funny when it was new and they were crammed into the back row of a tiny lecture hall in college, and it’s still funny now. Matt doesn’t even realize he’s stopped walking until he has a moment of clarity and outs himself right outside Trey’s door.

“Matt,” Trey greets, wide-eyed. He stops the voice memo he’s recording on his phone.

Matt says, “Sorry,” back, because he feels like he interrupted, and even though “yes” used to be his knee-jerk reaction when Trey said his name, apparently now it’s an apology.

He goes to say more, but all of a sudden, he doesn’t remember what he was going to add. Trey is wearing one of his shirts. It’s Matt’s -- unequivocally -- plain red waffle knit, one size too small, purchased in 2001, shirt. Matt freezes because it feels like he just got hit over the head with a 2x4. He bought that shitty thing at a JC Penney.

“I keep getting all these ideas,” Trey says, taking Matt’s silence as an awkward pause, and forging ahead in the spirit of not making it weird. “They just have nothing to do with the episode.”

They were living in a shitty walk-up apartment in Fairfax. It had pink walls and they always said they were going to paint them, but then they lived there for three years and when they moved out, the walls were still pink. Matt used to throw his dirty clothes on the bedroom floor.

“Yeah,” Matt gulps out. “That’s annoying, huh?”

He bought that shirt because they were editing almost 20 hours a day, living on DayQuil, and his pile of dirty clothes just kept getting bigger until he had nothing left in his closet.

Trey smiles at him which is like being kicked in the side when he’s already curled up on the floor.

“Could be worse.” Trey shrugs. He pauses, and then kind of gives Matt a look. “You okay?”

They used to leave the studio at 4AM, walk home, take sleeping pills, and have sex in the 35 minute window between the ephedrine wearing off and the sonata kicking in. It was the best half hour of Matt’s day.

“I’m good,” Matt bites out, heart racing. He realizes he’s holding onto the papers in his hand way too hard. “Just checking in.”

Trey gives him another one of those genuine smiles.

“Thanks,” he says, and he means it. Matt knows he means it.

They look at each other again and Matt is still stuck in that shitty pink apartment with Trey stealing all the ugly clothes he bought at JC Penneys.

Matt returns Trey’s smile, twists his papers into a tight tube, and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU for leaving such nice comments and feedback on chapter 2. I love this damn tag 😭
> 
> Also I now have a [tiny tumblr](https://mattandtrey.tumblr.com/tagged/tourist%20season) going for this fic.


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